Thursday, July 30, 2009

100 years on, still no power for the world proletariat. Certainly there needs to be a reassessment, but there is a lot that still can be gleaned from Kautsky’s finest work. It’s important to note that historically the parties of the left have fallen into the trap of class coalitionalism or mass strike fantasies and haven’t practiced the Kautsykan “strategy of patience”. How realistic this strategy is in the 21st century is an open question. Certainly new tactics will need to be devised, but the general principles of this piece though, in my opinion, are unassailable.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

At the 1st annual international convention of the Platypus Affiliated Society, in Chicago, June 12-14, 2009, the concluding plenary event, a discussion on the Platypus's theoretical stance, its raison d'etre, and where the project will be going.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

This book by Alan Woods is a polemic against a well-known (in Latin America) intellectual Heinz Dieterich. Dieterich claims to have invented a new "Socialism of the 21st Century" and much else into the bargain. He offers a great deal of advice to those involved in the Venezuelan Revolution dressed up in all manner of revolutionary rhetoric. However, when you clear away all the verbiage that surrounds his "new" socialist philosophy, there remains nothing new at all, simply a rehash of stale petty-bourgeois ideas of the past. The author of "Reformism or Revolution" seeks to answer Dieterich's extravagant claims and in doing so defends the real ideas of Marxism on a whole host of questions and in particular the way forward for the Venezuelan and world revolution.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Memories of Underdevelopment is the classic film of Cuban cinema. Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, the story is based on a novel by Edmundo Desnoes. It was Alea's fifth film, and probably his most famous worldwide. The film gathered several awards at international film festivals.

Sergio, a wealthy bourgeois aspiring writer, decides to stay in Cuba even though his wife and friends flee to Miami. Sergio looks back over the changes in Cuba, from the Cuban Revolution to the missile crisis, the effect of living in an underdeveloped country, and his relations with his girlfriends Elena and Hanna. Memories of Underdevelopment is a complex character study of alienation during the turmoil of social changes. The film is told in a highly subjective point of view through a fragmented narrative that resembles the way memories function.

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